The present invention relates to a cloth assembly for making a protective pad for sports and, more particularly, to a cloth assembly including an air-permeable cloth and a knitted cloth to provide an elastic, air-permeable, stretchable, and easy-to-use cloth.
Conventional protective pads for sports are generally made from a cloth assembly comprised of a substrate of neoprene or ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) and a knitted cloth bonded to the substrate. Such a cloth assembly is stretchable and can be wrapped around a portion of a wearer such that the protective pad can deform responsive to movement of the portion of the wearer, reducing discomfort resulting from sports. However, the protective pad made of such a cloth assembly is not permeable to air.
A sandwiched type cloth assembly has been proposed to provide air permeability, softness, and stretchability. Specifically, the sandwiched type cloth assembly includes two parallel, spaced knitted cloths and a plurality of supporting fibers extending between the knitted cloths, with the supporting fibers providing elasticity. Although such a sandwiched type cloth assembly provides air permeability and softness and can be used to make protective pads for sports, the cloth assembly does not include a loop tape including loops that allow easy and releasably engagement with hooks of a hook tape. Namely, an additional loop tape is required. Furthermore, if it is intended to directly produce loops on a surface of the cloth assembly, the structure of the sandwiched type cloth assembly will be damaged. Thus, the sandwiched type cloth assembly is not suitable for direct manufacture of protective pads for sports.
In a solution to the above disadvantage, a loop tape is provided on the whole surface of the sandwiched type cloth assembly so that the sandwiched type cloth assembly can be used to make a protective pad for sports and can be wrapped around a portion of a wearer. A hook tape is provided to engage with the loops of the loop tape when the protective pad is wrapped around the user, providing desired positioning effect. However, the cloth assembly including the loop tape is not stretchable such that the cloth assembly can not be intimate contact with the portion of the wearer. Thus, the protective pad can not stretch responsive to movement of the portion of the wearer, causing discomfort to the user during sporting.
Thus, a need exists for a novel cloth assembly that can provide elasticity, air permeability, stretchability, and easy engagement.